Wrapping Up by Ari Sasson

If there is one thing I have learned in this program, it is that struggling early on should not dissuade you... instead of backing down from the task at hand, I asked for help and advice and watched my skills slowly grow."

Just five weeks ago, I had a stupid idea to give flies nicotine, and zero knowledge of how to do research of fruit flies. I wanted to test the effect of nicotine on memory, but I had little clue of how to accomplish that. Now, I have refined my idea and along the way learned numerous lab techniques, developed a hatred of the adult memory assay, and mastered the use of a paintbrush (I still suck at art, but at least I can pick up larva with ease). I’ve sorted countless numbers of flies, made way too much agar, and ultimately had a really good time.

In the 4 experimental days since my last blog post, I realized I needed to change a few things to make my experiment successful. For one, I had to change the assay I was focusing on.

Initially I set out to test memory using the adult memory assay, but after spending a whole day watching my flies die in the assay, I threw in the towel. Dr. Amanda Purdy told me to switch to the larval memory assay and not wanting more failure, I happily obliged. The next change to my experiment was ditching the use of ten times strength nicotine solution during the teaching of the assay. This made the assay too complicated, and it was impossible to make sure the larva would be in contact with the solution while completing the assay. If I had more time to complete my experiment, I would have tried making agar with the nicotine solution instead of water to see if that had an effect on the flies memory.

If there is one thing I have learned in this program, it is that struggling early on should not dissuade you.
My first time sorting flies didn’t go very well. I couldn't flick them into the vial, I mixed up males and females, and I let them drop into very wet food.

Instead of backing down from the task at hand, I asked for help and advice and watched my skills slowly grow.
​The same can be said about the larval memory assay. On a particularly busy Thursday, I mismanaged my time and found myself learning the larval memory assay at 4:45. Even before I got larva out of the vial, I knew I would be very late that day. With Dr. Amanda Purdy by my side to help me, I learned the assay by doing two conditions at a time. Although frantic, I learned the steps of the assay, albeit messily. I lost flies left and right, ruined the agar plates almost immediately, and lost track of how many trials I had done, but at the end of the day the assay was learned. Over the next few experimental days, I kept at the larval memory assay, and by the end of the program I could do it with ease.

​Overall, I am very glad to have had the opportunity to be a member of the TRIP initiative. I was very nervous at the beginning of the program, but over time felt more comfortable in the lab and science communication.